Overview & Eligibility

Overview

Launched in 1985, The Butler Trust Awards help give credit where it’s due to staff, volunteers and partners working in UK prisons (inc IRCs), probation, and community and youth justice settings.

The Awards and Commendations are presented by HRH The Princess Royal, at our Annual Award Ceremony, normally held in either Buckingham Palace or St James’s Palace.

We receive around 350 nominations each year, from across the UK, from which we grant around 10 Awards and 20 Commendations.

And though we can only give Awards and Commendations to a small proportion of those nominated, a further 50-or so nominees receive Butler Trust Certificates (a third tier of recognition), while just being nominated is an achievement in itself and shows that someone’s efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Beyond the Award Ceremony, our Awards Winners and Commendees are offered places on our Alumni Programme, to help them learn from and build upon their achievements.

Eligibility

The Awards are open to people working in prisons, probation and youth justice settings across the UK (staff, volunteers and partner employees).

Awards are given to people for outstanding work which goes “above and beyond” what might normally be expected of them.

The Awards are for people not projects, and may be given to someone doing something new or innovative, or “just” doing their ordinary job extraordinarily well.

To be eligible for an Award:

nominees must have shown outstanding dedication, skill or creativity in their work, over a sustained period (usually at least 12 months);

the nomination must be for work carried out in, or services provided to, UK prisons (inc IRCs), probation/community justice or youth justice settings;

their work must have made a positive contribution to the management, care or rehabilitation of offenders, and/or to the health and well being of staff.

Joint nominations may be made for two or more people working together – but each nominee must have done something outstanding in their own right, and Awards are rarely given to more than four people jointly.

We welcome re-nominations where it is felt that someone’s nomination did not get as far as it should have on a previous occasion (though you may wish to discuss this with us first).

Past convictions are NOT a bar to an Award, but former offenders must have been living in the community, without further convictions, for a sustained period (usually at least two years), and we can not accept nominations for those awaiting trial or serving a sentence (including on licence).